What is the main conflict in Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Purnaiya Taylor?

The story follows the life of the narrator and heroine, Rukmani, who grows and matures through the clashing of the east and the west in post-independence India. Her tale begins when she is married at the age of twelve to a poor tenant farmer. The youngest of four daughters, Rukmani is left without a large dowry, and is therefore given in marriage to what society considered a man “beneath” her.